Crown Duel
by McSparkly
Summary: Jareth casts a spell that works...exactly as it's supposed to, leaving Sarah to deal with a surfeit of magically-talented, super-special daughters.


**Crown Duel**  
  
Disclaimer: The Labyrinth is not mine. Although I invented one or two characters for this story, they aren't mine. In fact, you can take them far, far away. Any resemblance to an actual invented character of another author is purely (believe me) coincidental. Reviews are sparkly and appreciated. Disclaimer will be shamelessly recycled for any future stories.  
  
Continuity Disclaimer: While this story exists in the same universe as **Of Goblin Queens**, both are standalone stories.  
  
---  
  
The girl arrived at half-past two.  
  
Sarah was drinking tea in the parlor, bare feet dangling over the arm of the divan. She had just lifted the delicate bone china teacup to her lips when the girl tumbled into the room, all blonde curls and rosy lips.  
  
When the tangle of pink skirts and loops of silver jewelry uncurled itself to reveal a rather pretty, doll-like young girl, Sarah arched a perfect eyebrow.  
  
"Well?"  
  
The girl blinked. "Where am I?" she asked carefully, craning her head to look around the room with curious distaste.  
  
Sarah followed her gaze, seeing nothing out of the ordinary in the mahogany- paneled walls and lush wall tapestries. The girl's eyes lingered on her jeans, which made Sarah wonder until she remembered that she was wearing the pair with the worn holes in the knees. When the girl tilted her head even further to try and read the title of the book resting on the low table by the divan, Sarah's patience thinned.  
  
"Usually introductions are required before I allow unannounced visits," she said coldly, She swung her legs down, straightening into painfully upright posture. Carefully, she folded her hands in her lap.  
  
The ripped lilac tank top with "Princess" hand-written in silver glitter rather spoiled the effect.  
  
The girl frowned. "Who are you?"  
  
Sarah choked. "Excuse me? You appear out of nowhere in my house and demand to know my name?"  
  
The blonde nodded, a motion that sent her blonde curls dancing in the sunlight through the high windows. She looked up, pursing rosebud lips, green eyes grave.  
  
_Green_ eyes?  
  
"I suppose that's all well. If you'll tell me where I am, I'll tell you my name. It might be...dangerous if I'm in the wrong place."  
  
Sarah began to have a bad feeling.  
  
She looked at the girl a second time, and saw the slanted yet arched eyebrows and the gusts of glitter that the girl shed like dandruff. And was that a crystal dangling from her neck, suspended by the barest thread of gossamer?  
  
While she couldn't be certain about the crystal, she needed no special examination to tell that she had a headache brewing.  
  
Far-off, thunder rumbled. Her teacup rattled lightly in the saucer, drawing the girl's attention.  
  
"This is familiar," the blonde said as she walked to the table, picking up the teacup and holding it to one emerald eye. The other eye shifted, flickering through blue and brown before settling on an earthy hazel with green specks. The girl squinted gracefully, extinguishing the blur of colors.  
  
Sarah sneezed, looking quickly away from her horrified examination. Damned glitter.  
  
"Sorry, it can make people a bit nauseous," the girl said apologetically. "They've changed that fast all my life. It lets me see in the dark." She thought for a moment. "And in the daytime as well."  
  
Sarah glanced around the sunny room, but the girl had gone back to her minute inspection of the teacup. She didn't mention the great plumes of glitter turning the floor into drifts of sparkling sand. Now and then the glitter would touch something and change it. The table grew scaly legs; the window opened and shut rather menacingly.  
  
Sarah understood the deep sea of anger swelling throughout the parlor, but wasn't ready to pass judgment yet. The window relaxed somewhat after a careful flick of her hand.  
  
"It looks just like elvish creations, but I've spent a century among our elves, learning courtly manners and rare forms of archery and hand-to-hand combat and how to make the wild animals love me like a mother...and I've never seen this pattern before."  
  
"It's the Queen's pattern," Sarah offered gently, conjuring a new, identical cup brimming with a fragrant liquid. The concoction, if she'd done it right, was supposed to relieve stress and minimize headaches. It didn't do anything for the sick feeling in her stomach.  
  
The girl still squinted at the lacy pattern picked out in silver on her cup and missed the small magic. "Queen of what?" she asked with no subtlety whatsoever. She lifted the cup to her lips and sipped the tepid tea within, much to Sarah's distaste.  
  
Sarah curled her hand around the cup with the headache remedy--straight brandy--and took a swig. "Queen of the Goblins."  
  
The girl choked, dropping the teacup but catching it moments later with impeccable, flawless grace. She turned forest-green, winsome eyes on Sarah beseechingly.  
  
"You knew my mother?"  
  
The delicate handle of the teacup Sarah was holding dissolved into fine powder beneath her grip. The cup hung in the air a moment, then fell through a patch of floating glitter. It turned into a white ferret with silver markings and scrambled away, leaving a trail of alcoholic fumes in its wake.  
  
"JARETH!" Sarah bellowed, sending reverberations throughout the chamber and booming into the hallways beyond. "Get your ass in here NOW."  
  
She pointed sternly at the ferret. It pawed the air, squeaking miserably, as it was dragged invisibly backwards and transformed into a whiskered teacup.  
  
Sarah didn't notice her sloppy conjuring: the earlier brandy had begun to take effect. She tipped the cup back and drained the rest of the amber liquid.  
  
"Oh goody!" the girl said, clapping her hands together in delight "I really wanted to see Daddy, but didn't know if I'd come back in time to the right place."  
  
She took another careful look at Sarah, who was purple and apoplectic as she glared at the window. Its shades were drawn for protection. "Are you my mother's maid? Lady-in..." she broke off, staring at Sarah's ripped and distinctively mortal attire. "...serving?" she gamely recovered.  
  
The entire teacup imploded into a miniature black hole in Sarah's hands. The black hole was promptly squelched into a tiny fireball, which hardened into a crystal full of nasty intent. She squashed the urge to start a magical dueling storyline and gently crushed the crystal between her hands.  
  
The girl missed the identity crisis of Sarah's spell. Her eyes rolled back in her head as the low, lilting sound of an oboe floated into the room.  
  
Sarah rolled her eyes. She had no patience for mystical trance-telling states. If the girl spouted a prophecy in the next minute, Sarah wouldn't be responsible for her actions.  
  
The oboe ceased before Sarah could plan her next move. In the blissful silence, the Goblin King walked jauntily into the parlor, his sable cape swirling. He was a vision in ebony, jet, onyx and immaculate raven accents. It was Friday, when he allowed Sarah to pick his clothing, and she hadn't been in the best of moods.  
  
He'd protested the lack of colors until she'd retreated to the parlor with her favorite book, threatening marital repercussions.  
  
Seeing his wife's slightly unfocused gaze of horror, he smirked, then wiped the expression from his face. Around Sarah, that expression was bound to occur. One day, she had promised herself, she'd find the empty-headed girl who had first told him that his smirking made women want to have sex with him.  
  
As Sarah had been the only woman in his life for quite some time, she was engaging in the oldest and most respectable tradition of marriage: changing her spouse's bad habits. The adage about his smirk and sex had been reversed appropriately.  
  
Give a Goblin King a reward, guarantee his faithfulness through magic, well-timed threats and bouts of inventive, vigorous sex, and wonders could happen.  
  
Until he figured out how to have a few moments of revenge.  
  
"You called, dear?"  
  
Openmouthed, the girl looked from Sarah to Jareth, her mind clearly working hard to process the implications of the statement. With a piercingly musical scream of outrage, she flung herself on Sarah, ready to start a knockdown, hair-pulling catfight like the elves had taught her.  
  
She bounced off a protective shield instead. Dismayed, the girl began to cry.  
  
"Give me my mother back, imposter!" she managed through her fetchingly glowing tears.  
  
Sarah turned to Jareth, who turned a distinctive shade of green that clashed terribly with the girl's eyes. Remarkably, it managed to complement those of his wife.  
  
"I swear on my wardrobe, love of my life, that I had nothing to do with...with this," he said waving a hand at the crying girl.  
  
It was true, in a way. He'd cast the spell without knowing what form it would take.  
  
Sarah eyed him suspiciously, but was quickly distracted by the next teary outburst.  
  
"How can you disown me, father?" the girl sniffled. Her hair had grown a foot longer in the last five minutes, and now fell to the floor in fetching waves of curling golden radiance. She batted long eyelashes through the buttercup-colored curtain of gently moving strands. "I was just coming back in time to see if the stories were really true, and I see you consorting with a serving maid!"  
  
Sarah thought the girl looked rather like a cocker spaniel. She'd wanted one, once, but Jareth had argued against her whim, persuasively describing future messes on the carpet. He'd given her a barking goblin for a pet instead. The goblin was much better at fetching the Aboveground _New York Times_, and warmed her slippers in the morning.  
  
The tears sniffled to a stop, and the girl looked up, a curious glint in her eye. "Perhaps that is what you wanted me to learn, that I am really someone else's child. That you put aside my mother-of-the-heart Sarah Williams in favor of some tramp."  
  
Sarah conjured up another protection field, but this time for the child. Jareth's green face was rapidly shading into angry red.  
  
"I will fix this!" the girl said. "In the name of the crystal moon, I will punish you for ruining our loving family! I will make you love my mother Sarah again, if only so that I can return to my existence!"  
  
Sarah blinked. Behind her, Jareth paused, frozen into one moment of long-limbed, slender-hipped, elegant disbelief.  
  
Any protection fields surrounding the girl disappeared.  
  
Oblivious, she held out a lace-gloved hand and conjured a sparkly unicorn make entirely of opalescent crystal. It tossed its mane and neighed musically.  
  
"I miss you, Beatifica," the girl whispered to the creation. "But at least my magic still takes your form in this time."  
  
Sarah growled, softly, but the touch of a hand on her back broke the creative makeover spell she'd decided was appropriate. She felt Jareth draw near to her in silent comfort. Together they faced the perilous child.  
  
"Bring me my mother!" the girl snapped imperiously as eldritch winds began to blow about her slim, curvaceous and well-endowed figure, turning her perfect curls into streaks of pure lightning. Sparks fell around her, igniting the drifts of glitter where they lay into tiny blue flames that matched the mystical energies snapping around the lightning-hair. The crystal bauble around her neck glowed as void-black as her eyes.  
  
"I'm afraid she's unavailable right now," the Goblin King offered, stepping even closer to Sarah.  
  
"She's dead," Sarah offered cheerily, remembering to straighten her face and let a single tear slide down it, glinting from the magical glow her supposed progeny was still emanating. "Died of the plague about two years ago, while pregnant."  
  
Jareth, when not exasperated by his wife, was a remarkably intelligent being. He understood Sarah's meaning immediately. "Didn't you say you were her daughter?"  
  
The girl nodded slowly, not quite quick enough to understand their scheme. She was destined for a great quest and a handsome prince, perhaps a tragically noble and poignant death, and anything that didn't fit into that scheme bewildered her. "So that's why I'm an only child."  
  
"Not quite, " Sarah said, relishing the moment. "She had no children before she died. " She shook her head. "Neither has the Goblin King."  
  
Jareth bared a mouthful of pointed teeth in what might pass for a smile at a serial killer convention. Watching his wife deal with the entertainment had proved more amusing than anticipated. It made the distraction itself no less annoying.  
  
"So you see, darling child," Sarah said, drawing out her words to prolong her satisfaction. "You don't exist. You're just a bad dream, a nightmare."  
  
"What?" cried the girl. The eldritch winds echoed her howl of dismay. "That's not true! That's impossible! I am their child! Their darling Nessalindoliena!"  
  
There was a second implosion as the fabric of reality reasserted itself, and the girl disappeared, still crying perfectly pitched complaints to the wind as she did so.  
  
"That's the last time I try new elvish drinks at dinner, no matter what the ambassador insists," Sarah muttered as she got up from the couch and angrily magicked the heaps of glitter away. She petted the windowsill absentmindedly. It purred and creaked open the tiniest bit.  
  
Jareth smiled slowly. Sarah didn't see it, concerned as she was with restoring the table and cleaning up the spilled tea from the cup the girl had dropped.  
  
Payback was sweet.  
  
"And Jareth?" she said, suddenly there in front of him.  
  
He looked down at his wife, who had artfully arranged her face to plead for this favor in the most beseeching manner.  
  
"Yes, darling?"  
  
"Truce?"  
  
He laughed and bent down to kiss her. "Truce," he agreed.  
  
As they reluctantly drew apart, she smiled. "The first child had better be male. I'm not raising a terror like that without an older brother to smack her around."  
  
A deeper smile spread over his face, stopping just short of a full-blown smirk. He could think of one particular entertainment that would make the day complete.  
  
Sarah was watching him.  
  
"Do that again," she said, smiling sweetly in a way that even ill-fated Nessalindoliena would approve of, "and you'll remember what it's like to sing soprano."  
  
He opened his mouth to protest, but she shushed him with a finger to his lips.  
  
"I'll be in the garden," she said, brandishing her book. "Don't you dare interrupt." She disappeared indignantly.  
  
The Goblin King looked around, throwing a stern look at the flapping shade of the window. It closed immediately and drew its shade tight.  
  
He conjured a crystal, balancing it delicately on the pitch-colored leather of his glove. Rolling it from hand to hand, he fell onto the divan, propping up one immaculate boot against the cushion.  
  
A silent command brought the garden into view, where Sarah was contentedly reading on a hammock and munching a violet fruit with her free hand.  
  
Another activated the dormant crystal he'd sent ahead of her where she couldn't sense it.  
  
Sarah looked up, startled, as beautiful non-identical girl twins, each with unique magical gifts never before seen in the Underground, interrupted her reading. One casually toyed with shiny pink crystals; the other whispered to the rainbow-colored doves perched on both shoulders. Both smiled vacuously, revealing pearly white teeth and mismatched eyes of varying hues.  
  
"JARETH!"  
  
He didn't need the crystal to hear his darling wife's shout of outrage.  
  
Jareth laughed until tears rolled down his face.  
  
---  
  
Author's postscript: The writing of this story involved a two-week hiatus from reading any blatant Mary Sues, the better to claim originality. Ah, the sacrifices of being an author. This story, if it isn't already obvious, is a parody. Nessalindoliena--who owes her name to Nessarose of the astonishingly good book _Wicked_, not a fanwork--still hasn't figured that out.  
  



End file.
